


La Petite Homicide

by fourleggedfish



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Asexual Sherlock, Don't Ask Because I Don't Even, Fluff What Fluff, John Watson is a BAMF at Feelings, M/M, Mentions of past dub-con, Mildly Dubious Consent, Sherlock Being Sherlock, Sherlock Is Pants At Feelings, a little bit of angst, but not really, eventually, unpleasant sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-05
Updated: 2015-09-05
Packaged: 2018-04-19 06:15:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4735553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fourleggedfish/pseuds/fourleggedfish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock thinks he knows what he's doing. He thought about it, and he came up with a plan, and then he shared this brilliant plan with John, and John (eventually) agreed to it. The problem is that sometimes, Sherlock is a giant idiot and John keeps forgetting about that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	La Petite Homicide

**Author's Note:**

> FAIR WARNING: There are some elements of this that might be triggering. For a full explanation, see the end notes before reading. But really, this became some kind of feelings-y sap-fest, and I have no idea how that happened because Fluff and I have never been on speaking terms. In fact, Fluff would be happy to smother me in my sleep if it could. 
> 
> Takes place POST-MARY in whatever manner you prefer for getting her and the baby out of the picture. 
> 
> I don't know where this came from, and I disclaim all responsibility for any Feelings contained herein. 
> 
> Second Warning for Popcorn and John Eating Granola.

_Now_

John shoved, knee in the middle of Sherlock's back, until he managed to flatten the man back down against their scored old coffee table. John looked down at the shoulder blades facing him, sharp boney tipped wings that shifted and heaved as Sherlock teetered on the cusp of outright panic, posh shirt pulled taut across the back of his neck. All this just from having John unbutton his trousers and try to reach inside. And it had been going so well up until that point.

 

Sherlock twitched a few times as John studied him, a convulsion of hiccups, and grasped at the table’s edge as if to stop himself from giving anything else away.

 

“Calm down, Sherlock. You’re going to hyperventilate.”

 

~

_Before_

 

John frowned at his flatmate, a rag doll heap of coat rack limbs tossed in disordered lines over various parts of the sofa. "So when you say 'too much'....?"

 

Sherlock rolled his eyes toward the ceiling...affected boredom...tried to act as if the whole conversation were so far beneath him that even contempt would be too much effort to grace it with. He didn't even bother sighing, just sort of let gravity weigh his chest down until air sloughed out of it.

 

~

_Now_

 

It took a bit more effort than John had honestly expected to alternately drag and wrestle Sherlock through the kitchen and into Sherlock's bedroom. It wasn’t that Sherlock fought him – even after months spent on the lamb playing secret spy, Sherlock couldn’t match John in hand-to-hand combat. There was an awful lot of tripping, though, and then some sort of blundering that made John wonder if Sherlock had taken something or drank something that affected his balance or his coordination. He wouldn’t put it past Sherlock to drug himself in an effort to be more compliant, or to perhaps try to tamp down his mind or desensitize himself. It wouldn’t even be the first time. After folding Sherlock down onto the bed like a collapsible ladder, John wondered if he should maybe not do this after all. He didn’t exactly want to do this to a drugged man.

 

Beneath John's hands, Sherlock shuddered a few times where he lay on his stomach and executed an odd sort of gulping attempt at a swallow. John loosened his grip on the thin wrists that he had pinned in the small of Sherlock's back. "That's it," he offered. He was unlikely to be permitted much of a chance to offer reassurance, so he gave what he could now. "Just breathe. Slow. Try to stay calm."

 

Sherlock squirmed a bit. "John...please..."

 

John nodded behind Sherlock's back, watching sweat bead at temples only just visible beyond clumps of tufted black hair. "I know. I won't draw it out." He looked down past the thin fingers twisted white knuckled in on themselves where John had trapped them, and used his free hand to pluck at the already loose waistband of Sherlock's precisely tailored trousers.

 

~

_Before_

 

"No."

 

"John - "

 

"Nope."

 

"It makes perfect sense."

 

"Ah, no."

 

"But I said please!"

 

"What? When?" John peered over the top of his newspaper at a blank faced Sherlock perched perfectly still in the chair across from his own. Sherlock touched the tips of his steepled index fingers to the seam between his lips and John rolled his eyes. "You said it in your head, didn't you." He flapped his paper back up between them with a snap. "You know that doesn't count."

 

Sherlock gave a truly over dramatic groaning kind of scoff and stomped from the room with an unnecessary flair of dressing gown and overturned chair.

 

Without taking his eyes from his paper, John called, "Tantrums don't work on me anymore, just in case you deleted that too. Again."

 

~

 

_Now_

 

“It’s too much. John, I can’t – ”

 

“Yes you can.” John dragged him over onto his back and finished unbuttoning the shirt he had started on back when Sherlock had still been tensed up in his green leather chair. “We discussed this.”

 

Sherlock shook his head, violent slashes of curls flung side to side around scrunched up eyes. He fisted his hands in the sheets until John’s fingers tripped once again to his trouser front, and then he jerked away, hissing like a mad cat. “Stop it! Wait – ”

 

John caught at Sherlock’s hands before they could gain any real leverage against John’s body and relocated them to cross over his navel, where John could pin them again to stop him from repeatedly shoving John’s hands away. “It’ll be over before you know it.”

 

~

 

_Before_

 

“What about a trade?”

 

John blinked once, slowly, and then focused back on the telly. “This again?”

 

“I could do something distasteful for you in return.”

 

“What part of ‘no’ is so difficult for you to accept?”

 

Sherlock flapped a hand in his general direction. “The part where you always give in after a sufficient enough period of resistance that you don’t feel like a _complete_ doormat for doing everything I want because if you can convince yourself that it was entirely your decision in the end, you’re less irritable about it afterwards.”

 

John bit his tongue and let his nostrils flare without taking his eyes off of the telly.

 

“What if I attended the cinema with you for another one of your horrid – ”

 

“No, Sherlock.”

 

Sherlock studied him for a moment and then huffed his way back into a ball in his chair. “You’re being unreasonable.”

 

“And you’re being a cock, so I’d say we’re even.”

 

~

 

_Now_

 

Sherlock had his eyes squinched shut so tightly that John imagined he must be able to see pressure-induced starbursts of color behind his eyelids. The clenched jaw worried him, though not as much as the way his rapid breathing seemed out of sync with the rise and fall of his chest. John watched the rhythmic flaring of Sherlock’s nostrils as he removed Sherlock’s trousers and pants, and then he pried ten pale fingers out from the sheets twisted so hard in Sherlock’s fists that the circulation had been all but cut off. Tendons stood out like cords in Sherlock’s forearms, and John could see the pulse throbbing too hard and too fast in one of the more prominent veins.

 

“Sherlock?” When the only response turned out to be a full-body twitch, John thumped his fingers hard against Sherlock’s sternum. “You have to answer me, Sherlock. Words, or this stops.”

 

A frankly alarming flurry of sound flutter-punched its way from Sherlock’s throat, and then he yelped, “Don’t! Don’t. Don’t, John. Don’t – ”

 

John nodded even though Sherlock couldn’t see him. “I won’t. But I need your words, remember?”

 

“Words – yes – don’t – stop – ”

 

John didn’t.

 

~

 

_Before_

 

“It has been brought to my attention that perhaps my comparing uncomfortable sexual relations to watching a film in a theater with you may have been taken in the wrong way.”

 

John stopped chewing and resolutely did not look up from where he had been groggily reading the label on the granola box in front of him. Surely it was too early for this.

 

Sherlock cleared his throat behind John and shuffled a bit. John only knew because Sherlock was incapable of fidgeting quietly. “So… I would simply like to assure you that attending the cinema with you is not in the same category as unpleasant, intimate physical contact. Of course, you understand that this is a subjective measurement only.”

 

Yes, far too early. “Sherlock…” John hesitated, looked at the milk dropping from his aborted bite of cereal, sighed, and set the spoon back into the bowl. “Fine. In your _subjective measurement,_ then, which is worse: the cinema or sex?” It wasn’t a matter of knowing that he would regret asking; he already regretted engaging in the conversation at all.

 

Behind him, Sherlock went still. “Um.”

 

“It’s the cinema, isn’t it.”

 

Shuffles and scuffs, and then, “Which answer will make you less angry?”

 

John rolled his eyes. “Right. How many times do I have to apologize for the cinema again?”

 

“This wasn’t part of the script.”

 

“What script?”

 

“The one for this conversation.”

 

John picked up his spoon and carefully scooped up a blob of mushy granola.

 

“John, you are not adhering to social conventions. My awkward attempt at an apology should strike you as charming. Or at least endearing. You are supposed to accept it so that we can move on from this minor misunderstanding.”

 

“I’m eating my cereal now.”

 

Sherlock started fidgeting again. Not-quietly. “Right. And your response my proposal?”

 

“Cereal, Sherlock.”

 

After a minute, Sherlock fidgeted away down the hall and into the loo. John closed his eyes in something like relief.

 

~

 

_Now_

 

“ _Breathe_ , Sherlock.”

 

One gulp followed, and then an inhale that sounded more like an avalanche of packing peanuts interspersed with an utterance of John’s name that John refused to categorize as a whimper. It was far too wobbly for that anyway.

 

Instead of lingering over the intelligible portions of Sherlock’s ragged breathing, John flattened his hand on the center of Sherlock’s bared chest and managed a moment of eye contact. He needed to ask if this was still okay; it burned in his stomach in a way that he wasn’t sure he could ignore, except that he’d promised he wouldn’t.

 

Sherlock’s nostrils flared, and John could see him fighting back his own knee-jerk reaction to the unvoiced question. Long fingers tipped in fresh callouses snaked about John’s wrist – the one connected to the hand splayed over Sherlock’s heart. All ten of them. John looked down and thought of how frustrated Sherlock had been when he’d realized that he’d been gone long enough to lose some of his refinement on the beloved violin, along with all of his callouses.

 

Just to be on the safe side, John didn’t attempt eye contact again. Instead, he reached down between them.

 

~

 

_Before_

 

“So, at what point, exactly, does it get better?”

 

Sherlock looked at him the same way he might look at Anderson.

 

“Hm. So, you don’t know then. If it does, I mean.”

 

Sherlock’s face curled into a sneer – one of his uglier ones, at that, which meant that John had hit a nerve.

 

John nodded, his face contemplative and bland only because he knew it would piss Sherlock off. And really, times like this, the git deserved it. John wasn’t the one who kept bringing this up. Like a cat with a prized dead bird, Sherlock was.

 

Sherlock ruffled and puffed up like a great angry turkey. “Oh, piss off!”

 

“Really?” John flicked his newspaper, which had fallen over limp during their sneering contest. “Because I’m not the one who keeps harassing me about this. Just, you know.” He twiddled an index finger as if the digit could make a point for him, which he knew would annoy an already prickling Sherlock. “In case you thought I forgot.”

 

“Stop acting as if the thought doesn’t turn you on!”

 

John blinked, blinked again, and folded down the edge of the newspaper again. He could tell that Sherlock was already second guessing the wisdom of what he’d just said. He could also tell that even though Sherlock knew that his statement was not good, he didn’t know why. John narrowed his eyes and let a bit of that danger seep into his face that he had acquired in Afghanistan. “I beg your pardon.”

 

~

 

_Now_

 

“ – ahp!”

 

John tried to catch at Sherlock’s hand, but he wasn’t quick enough. Instead, he reached up to turn Sherlock’s face out from its smother against the pillow, and then shoved at the raised right shoulder until Sherlock was splayed out flat on his back again. “Don’t, Sherlock. I need to see your face.”

 

“Oh, god.”

 

The sound of his voice was so unlike Sherlock that John paused with his other hand wrapped firmly around Sherlock’s penis. There was a certain sound to a man’s voice when he tried to speak through blood welling in his throat; John remembered it well from the battlefield. There was no blood here, but the quality to Sherlock’s words was the same.

 

“John – ” Sherlock shied away, or tried to, but there was nowhere for him to go, tangled up as they were with John practically on top of him. “Sorry – I’m sorr – ”

 

John stopped him with a quiet _shush_ and a hand against his damp cheek. “Don’t. It’s fine. You’re fine.”

 

Sherlock shook for a moment as John resumed jerking him off, and then coughed and grabbed at John’s jumper and choked on his own lack of words.

 

~

 

_Before_

 

“Three times.”

 

A furrow made its way between John’s eyes, and eventually, he decided that he may as well look up from his laptop screen, which was unhelpfully covered in his pitiful attempts at research. “I don’t suppose there’s more to that thought? Because I think you kept part of it in your head again by accident.”

 

Sherlock blinked and then his eyes flickered back and forth for a moment as if reviewing the last several minutes on a CCTV feed in his head. “Oh! Yes. Of course. You asked how many other times I have attempted this.”

 

“No,” John drawled, his tone intentionally thick. “I haven’t said anything for over an hour.”

 

“Well not out loud, obviously.”

 

John glanced toward the ceiling and then back to his laptop. Dr. Ruth stared back at him.

 

“The answer is three times,” Sherlock repeated helpfully. “All with the same person.”

 

“Is this another scripted conversation?”

 

Sherlock finally looked _at_ John, confused. “Problem?”

 

“It’s just that you never provide me with the script beforehand, so I have no idea how you want me to react.”

 

Sherlock frowned. “You’re John. You’ll react like John.”

 

John glanced up and doubtfully quirked an eyebrow.

 

“Fine. Just – ask me about the previous three times.”

 

John smiled with as many teeth as he could manage. He could tell it was alarming by the way Sherlock glanced quickly around the room as if he had missed something. “Sherlock, would you ever so kindly tell me about the previous three times you tried to have sex with someone?”

 

Sherlock’s face blanked, and then he huffed, “That’s not how you normally ask things.”

 

“Oh, for – You know what? I have things to do right now that do not include guessing at how you want me to say things to you.” John snapped his laptop shut and glared across the space between their chairs. “So tell me what you’re on about already, or I’m going to go start dinner.”

 

The edges of Sherlock’s lips curled up in an almost divine little smile. “Oh, _much_ better,” he purred. “Do it again, now you’ve got it right.”

 

John put his face in his palm and tried not to sigh.

 

~

 

_Now_

 

“ – can’t – John, I can’t – ”

 

John caught again at the hand that Sherlock kept trying to get between them and this time, he held it down against the bed. Sherlock’s other hand was still wrenched up in a tangle with John’s jumper; he likely couldn’t get his fingers free easily at this point. John tried to reassure him with, “It will get better soon.”

 

He didn’t know that it actually would, though, and this was starting to surpass simple distress. Sherlock could hardly get words out anymore between his desperate attempts to gulp and swallow a breath of air now and then, and if he twisted his lower body any harder in his instinctive attempts to evade John’s hand on his penis, he would sprain something.

 

Sherlock’s breath caught suddenly, and then some sort of full-body spasm rippled through him. John leaned against the hips that juddered under his arm and worked to pin Sherlock’s flailing right leg so that he didn’t end up with a knee jabbed into the tender cartilage of his nose. Sherlock’s face screwed up into something mostly pained and John watched sharp incisors pierce Sherlock’s bottom lip, just a pinprick and barely a single drop of blood, but blood just the same.

 

Just then a low sort of wail worked its way into the humid air of the bedroom, broken in places by what John could really only describe as sobs. Not heaving, crying sobs or an expression of emotion; this was simply the overwrought sound that a man makes when he really, truly cannot take any more with a straight face. Like setting a broken leg with no anesthetic. Like digging bullet fragments from one’s own shoulder, unable and unwilling to pass out before it’s done, screaming in harsh, rasping pants because letting those sounds escape is the only way to soldier through.

 

“No,” John said without warning. And then again, “No.” He let go of everything he was holding or holding down and tipped himself off of Sherlock, ripping the long fingers from his jumper as he went.

 

~

 

_Before_

 

“What, like never?”

 

Sherlock’s nose twitched, and he scratched absently at the side of it. “Well…the obvious…adolescent…nocturnal…things, but other than that, no.”

 

John blinked at him a few times and then caught himself making a huge deal out of it. “Right, sorry. Not freakish or anything. It’s just unusual.”

 

“From what I understand, it is a female affliction.”

 

John found himself puffing air into his cheeks, his head tipped to one side like a dog after an odd sound, and stopped. “Who the fuck told you that?”

 

“An acquaintance.” Sherlock shifted uncomfortably on the sofa. “She was displeased at being asked to stop multiple times and eventually explained it to me.”

 

“Explained,” John deadpanned. “By telling you that it’s a _female affliction_ and that it’s wrong for you to have a problem with it.”

 

Sherlock shrugged. “Essentially correct. My research has supported that claim. In men, such an affliction is due to poor hygiene, overzealous application of soap to the foreskin, physical deformity, illness and disease, painful skin conditions such as eczema, or a botched circumcision resulting in nerve damage. As I am not circumcised or otherwise physically deformed, and as I am medically clean and observe proper hygiene with regards to my genitals, there is no other explanation for oversensitivity so severe that a sexual act cannot be completed.”

 

John goggled; he couldn’t help it. “So...the only explanation for this, in your mind, is that your penis thinks that it’s a female?”

 

“What? No! Don’t be ridiculous.”

 

“Pretty sure I’m not the ridiculous one here.” He paused, suspicious, and then narrowed his eyes at Sherlock. “She stopped, right? When you told her to?”

 

“…eventually.”

 

“Right.” John chewed his lip for a moment, and then asked, “So, who was this absolute winner, anyway? She must have a name.”

 

Sherlock gave him a tolerant but rather fond look. “You cannot commit homicide any time you believe that I have been treated poorly.”

 

“I don’t see why not.”

 

~

 

_Now_

 

John grasped at his knees and tried to work feeling back into fingers that tingled from oxygen deprivation. He needed to get a grip on himself; he wasn’t the one hurt here. He had no right to a panic attack over it. He went to rub his hands over his face and then stopped as the smell reached his nostrils: sex musk and fear and sweat and something else unpleasantly sour. He screwed his face up instead as if he could accomplish the same thing and let his fingers curl into fists.

 

Behind him, Sherlock gasped a few times as he caught his breath, shaking the whole mattress with the force of it, and then everything stilled. “John?” A tentative touch fluttered against the small of John’s back, and was gone just as quickly. “Are you alright?” His voice came out bruised and hoarse, and that brief touch had lingered long enough for John to feel the tremble in them.

 

It took a second for John to realize that the maniacal cackling he heard was his own completely inappropriate laughter. “Am I alright? _Me_? I’m the one practically raping you with my hand.”

 

The frown was evident in Sherlock’s voice when he countered, “But I asked you to do it. It’s consensual.”

 

John shook his head harder than necessary, then sneered into his lap and worked on steadying his breathing. The swish of limbs skating across bedsheets reached his ears through the rush and roar of his own head, and then Sherlock wrapped his hands over the tips of John’s shoulders.

 

~

 

_Before_

 

“But what if you want to stop?”

 

“I _don’t_ want to stop – that’s the point.”

 

John stared hard at the top of Sherlock’s head, bent as it was over the microscope. John drummed his fingers on the stovetop for a moment, glanced at the electric kettle – still not boiling – and then glared at Sherlock again for a few seconds. “I’m not doing it without a safeword.”

 

Sherlock could not have been more droll if he’d tried. “If there is a safeword, I will use it.”

 

“Yeah,” John replied. “And _that’s_ the point.”

 

Sherlock’s head came up at that and he studied the middle distance for a moment before returning to his bacteria. “I don’t understand why you’re being so difficult about this.”

 

John scratched at his stomach and checked the kettle again, hopeful that he could busy himself with tea and maybe distract Sherlock from pursuing this conversation. The kettle was on Sherlock’s side, though, the traitor. Didn’t it know that the only reason it was still alive was because John had threatened the madman with permanent disability if he used it for any purpose other than boiling water – plain, untreated, nothing-added-to-it-not-even-sugar water – for tea? He looked at Sherlock’s bent spine, considered for a moment, and then asked, “Why does this even matter? Do you want to have, like, a sexual relationship with someone? I thought that wasn’t your area.”

 

The answering shrug was too casual to actually be that. “I want to know what it feels like. Call it scientific curiosity.”

 

“This isn’t scientific curiosity,” John countered. “If that was all this was, you could hire someone or build a machine, or…or ask me this without all of the drama. This is personal, somehow. You’re asking for emotional reasons.”

 

Sherlock sniffed. “There’s no cause for insults.”

 

“Sherlock.”

 

“Fine,” Sherlock snapped. He flung his pen across the table and rounded on John. “What do you want to hear, John? That I dislike being _abnormal_? That I am lonely? That I cannot stop being lonely because I cannot stand to be anything else? I have _tried_! I am awkward and gangly and unpleasant. What else have I got to offer if I cannot even offer _this_?!” He summed up his body with a degree of self-loathing that sent John backing up against the cooktop. “As you keep insisting on pointing out to people, I am not actually a sociopath, but it would be _so much easier_ _if I were_! I am _not_ socially adept. I don’t understand people, I don’t know how to make them like me – ”

 

John snapped himself out of his shock long enough to grab at the hands that Sherlock was slashing through the air and still him. “Whoa. You think sex will make people like you?”

 

“Of course not!” Sherlock spit at him, more furious than John had realized he’d become in a few short seconds. “I’m not likeable, I _know_ that! I just want people to not leave all the time!”

 

Before John could even begin to process that, Sherlock tore his hands free, stuffed his arms full of his notebooks and laptop and (John winced) bottles of chemicals, and stormed from the kitchen. His bedroom door slammed a moment later, and John took a moment to sink down into a conveniently displaced chair just as the kettle beeped to let him know it was ready.

 

~

 

_Now_

 

When Sherlock returned to the bedroom, he had his blue dressing gown tied closed over his bare skin, and there was a mug of tea in each hand. John accepted his gratefully and kept his eyes closed while he breathed in the steam. Somewhere else in the room, Sherlock moved around, shuffling things into new places, and then the mattress dipped next to John. “Should I apologize for something?”

 

John snorted.

 

Sherlock shifted a bit, started to speak a few times, subsided into his own mug of tea, and then blurted out, “Are you going to leave now?”

 

And just like that, with those six innocuous words, so many things made horrible sense. John blinked just to make sure nothing clouded his vision. Not that it would have, of course; he was British. “You – ” He had to clear his throat and start over. “You were trying to make sure that _I_ didn’t leave.”

 

Sherlock leaned a bit closer to him; from his body language, John didn’t think he was aware of having done it. “You came back,” he stated simply. “No one else ever did that.”

 

John shook his head; he had no idea what he was supposed to say to that. “Why _this_ then? You know I like you already – you’re my best friend. You didn’t need to… _do_ this.”

 

“You require sexual gratification in a relationship.”

 

“We’re not in a relationship,” John pointed out.

 

Sherlock nodded quickly. “I know.” He swallowed thickly. “Does it matter?”

 

~

 

_Before_

 

“Alright.”

 

Sherlock dropped his tongs along with the test tube in their grip.

 

“I’ll do it.” Not that the clarification was needed, to judge by Sherlock’s giddy grin and the way he bounced over to where John stood in the doorway. John let him vibrate in little bouncy circles like it was a Christmas murder spree and then casually asked, “Was that acid?”

 

Sherlock froze with the grin still comically in place, his eyes abruptly refocusing on nothing. Then he darted away again and spent a while swearing at the blistering floorboards while John sighed and drank tea and ignored the fourth hole in their new rug.

 

~

 

_Now_

 

“I don’t want to leave,” John proclaimed into the oppressive nothing that hovered thick between them on the bed. “But I can’t do that again.”

 

Sherlock nodded, but it was a miserable sort of thing. “You’re not gay. I know.”

 

“No,” John agreed and disagreed. “I can’t do that _to you_ again.”

 

“Yes,” Sherlock agreed. “I understand.”

 

“No you don’t.”

 

Sherlock rolled his face away and grew tense about the shoulders. “Yes, John – do go and defend your heterosexuality again. I am sorry I forced you to touch a man’s penis in something other than medical circumstances.” He made to stand, but John grabbed his arm and yanked him back down hard enough to slosh Sherlock’s tea over the back of his hand. “Oh, for god’s sake!” Sherlock yelled. “Must I be here for this part? It’s tedious!”

 

“Listen to me,” John said, his voice forced in its utter calm. “I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to inflict some kind of sexual contact on you if you can’t enjoy it. I love you. Therefore, I am not leaving.”

 

Sherlock sniffed at him, as if that could help him make sense of John’s words. “You’re not leaving.”

 

John shook his head. “No.”

 

Suspicious now, Sherlock squinted at him. “You said love.”

 

“Yes.”

 

~

 

_Before_

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

 

Sherlock glared at him. “Of course I’m sure. What could possibly go wrong?”

 

John started a list in his head, and Sherlock’s glare grew darker because of course, he could tell.

 

~

 

_Now_

 

Still wary, Sherlock asked, “What about the sex?”

 

John looked at him for a bit and felt his face going soft. “Do you actually want sex?”

 

At first, Sherlock refused to meet his eyes, and then he appeared to grow disgusted with himself. Finally, he clipped out, “No. It’s…horrible. I’d rather go to that cinema thing again.”

 

John nodded, studied the way Sherlock picked at his own hands and basically fumed at himself. “Then there won’t be any sex,” John told him.

 

“But you need sex. Normal people need sex.”

 

John spent half a minute just breathing. Once he was sure of being able to keep his voice steady, he said, “Let’s stop assuming I’m normal then, hm?”

 

Sherlock cut his eyes toward John’s face and maybe, finally, there was something in them other than self-loathing or despair. Sadly, he replied, “I never thought you were.”

 

~

 

_Before_

 

“John, I wondered if I might borrow you for an experiment.”

 

John looked up from the box he was unpacking and then twisted around to look at Sherlock where he stood poised in John’s bedroom doorway. “I’m barely even moved back in.”

 

“Yes.” Sherlock gave the half-unpacked box a pointed look. “Is this a bad time then?”

 

John scrubbed at his face with his free hand. “Right, of course not.” He stood and picked up the box; no sense in pretending he’d be finishing it now. “What is it we’re doing then?”

 

“Sex.”

 

John dropped the box halfway to the closet. “Sorry. What?”

 

~

 

_After_

 

“It was a brilliant plan.”

 

John scoffed. “No, it wasn’t.”

 

“One of my best, really.”

 

“It was utter rubbish,” John asserted around a mouthful of popcorn.

 

“And yet, here you are.”

 

“Yes, it’s genuine connubial bliss.” John glared, but it lacked any real sting. “How do you know it wasn’t all _my_ brilliant plan?”

 

Sherlock snorted, but then he looked horrified for a moment.

 

“Because, you know. Here _you_ are. At the cinema with me. Again.”

 

Sherlock peered at him from the corner of one eye. “You aren’t that clever. Are you that clever?”

 

John grinned at him. “If I _were_ that clever, how would you ever know?”

 

“You’re not that clever.”

 

“Says the man attending the cinema with me again.”

 

Sherlock scowled into his bucket of popcorn, stuck his face in John’s for a moment, and then switched them.

 

“Oi!”

 

“Yours tastes better.”

 

“You know, just because you’re my boyfriend now – ”

 

“Partner.”

 

“ – doesn’t mean you can steal my popcorn.”

 

Sherlock chewed John’s popcorn at John. Obnoxiously.

 

With a grumble, John subsided and started in on Sherlock’s popcorn. “I still want to know her name.”

 

“Unimportant. I deleted her after I obtained you.”

 

“Please?”

 

“Homicide is not good, John.”

 

“What if I only kill her a little. Then it’s only a _bit_ not good.”

 

Sherlock twisted his mouth up to one side to keep it from breaking into a hideously goofy smile. In the sticky folding chair beside him, John grinned and bumped their shoulders together and ate Sherlock’s popcorn.

**Author's Note:**

> WARNINGS: It looks like non-con or dub-con. No actual non-con occurs here, though. Dub-con only because Sherlock doesn't understand the concept of consent, IMHO. Passing mention of an emotionally manipulative sexual relationship in Sherlock's past. Nothing graphic, no specifics.


End file.
